


trusted

by trashcan



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Past Jean/Marco, background Reiner/Bertholdt, sads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 13:32:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1146574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashcan/pseuds/trashcan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a terrible thing, to be trusted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	trusted

**Author's Note:**

> written for the snkkink meme. prompt: the three having glad-to-be-alive sex after their encounter with the female-type titan. I ran with it in an angsty direction...

The mission had been a failure for both soldier and warrior. Countless human casualties sustained for absolutely no gain. Annie with too much blood on her hands for any soul to bear, but ironically empty-handed.

Still, you're painfully glad that the two silent, shell-shocked boys riding back at your side are still alive. Maybe Annie suffers in the same way that you do. Armin and Jean had been as two insects to her, but even cool, collected Annie could not bring herself to squash them.

And you got to play hero and save your friends. Despite the day's trauma, they look at you now with grateful eyes.

It's a terrible thing, to be trusted.

Worse still, to crave that trust like sustenance, to drink in human affection like water on parched earth. 

As a warrior, you should have let Jean be swatted like a fly when he was helpless in the air. You should have let Armin be crushed underfoot, dangerously sharp mind powerless to save him.

As a soldier, you should turn Jean away from your quarters now. It should be enough for you, that you got to perform your duty and protect your comrades. You shouldn't crave their devotion, their reverence that goes beyond normal camaraderie between brothers-in-arms.

But you do, and when Jean stands fidgeting at your door, you motion for him to come inside, because you're not a warrior or a soldier, just a boy who wants so desperately to be loved.

“Thank you,” he says, looking deep into your eyes, and you hate that his gratitude makes your heart swell. “I didn't want to die like that. Without ever having done anything.”

His voice shakes, and you think of a funeral pyre, and Jean making a promise to the tower of smoke that rose in the night sky.

You place a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. You can't imagine how he must feel. Just Bertholdt's increasing distance is enough to leave you anxious and hollow. To lose him forever, to never have even the chance to hold him again...

Jean leans into the touch, too much to be accidental. If you were a good person, you'd send him on his way with a pat on the back. You wouldn't think about how lonely he must be, wouldn't think about how he probably craves any sort of physical comfort, wouldn't take advantage of his raw emotional state to sate your own twisted need to be needed.

You're not a good person, so you bring him into a tight hug. 

He collapses against your chest, surprisingly light in your arms as he buries his face on your shoulder. You feel hot wetness seeping through the thin fabric of your undershirt.

“Sorry,” he says, face still pressed into your shoulder, “I'm feeling pretty messed up... I should leave you alone.”

“Don't be,” and a part of you (the warrior, or is it the soldier?) is horrified at how easy the words come to you. “I'm here for you, Jean. You can stay if you need to.”

“Thanks, Reiner,” and Jean takes a shuddering breath. You try and fail not to feel a little thrill that even prickly Jean Kirschstein turns to you for comfort. His body is warm against yours and his slight weight feels nice. You absently rub your hands on his upper back, and you feel his shoulder blades tense slightly under your palms.

You find yourself thinking of Bertl, who hasn't touched you in weeks. You miss his heat and solid presence. You wonder if this is how it's going to be, you and Jean. Each thinking of another while clinging to each other.

Jean pulls back, his face suddenly flushed with what you're guessing is embarrassment. He hastily wipes at his wet eyes. “Sorry,” he says again. “I was going to go check on Armin, actually.”

“I'll go with you,” you don't want to be alone, not just yet. And that twisted part of you wants to feel Armin's gratitude too.

Armin is fine, as fine as anyone can be after seeing so much death in one day, though the bandages on his head are soaked through and stiff with dried blood.

“I completely forgot about them,” he admits as Jean wipes his brow clean and you prepare fresh bandages. “The medics had a lot worse to take care of, I suppose.”

He sits still as you wrap his head for the second time that day, but you see his hands shaking in his lap. He looks even smaller out of his gear and uniform.

“We were really close to dying today,” he says in a small voice.

Your hand lingers in his hair. He doesn't seem to mind, or notice, just keeps talking in that breathless voice.

“I can still feel her fingers on my head. Just two fingers – that's all it would have taken to pop my head like a grape. My heart hasn't stopped pounding. Jean, she was just inches away from getting you. And Reiner...”

It takes all of your composure as a warrior not to let your worry appear on your face. No, he can't suspect... as smart as Armin is, there's no way he knows what you carved into her hand, what you really are...

Armin turns his head to look at you. “I really thought you were gone. I'm glad you're still here. I'm really glad.” His wide blue eyes are open and trusting and getting watery, and you awkwardly stroke his hair.

“I'm sorry, it just all hit me at once,” Armin sniffed. “I didn't have time to panic earlier, so I think it's catching up with me now.” He gave a shaky laugh. “I just can't believe we're still alive. That I'm not imagining all of us being here, that I'm not actually rotting in the belly of a Titan.”

Jean bites his lip, then scoots closer to where Armin is seated on his bed and places a tentative hand on Armin's shaking one. “We're alive,” he says, not flinching when Armin whips his head around to look at him in surprise. “We're here and we're alive.”

You're not sure what happens next, 

but you think you blink, 

for what feels like a long time,

and Armin is kissing Jean, and you're holding both of them in his arms. It's kind of weird, but you're just so glad to be alive. You're so glad you protected your friends, and survived the battle against that freak Aberrant. You're even a bit proud that you were able to escape from that monster's grasp, that your ranking of second strongest counts for something after all. 

You're alive, and you're only human, and you just want to feel like it. Armin and Jean are so warm in your arms, and they look so fragile, but that's all right because you're a soldier and you're strong and you'll protect them. 

Jean kisses Armin back after he recovers from his initial surprise, and he's kissing you now too. It's been so long since Bertl wanted to touch you and you don't know why he's so upset with you, but you can't think about it now because Jean's mouth is on yours, hot and needy and wet. You're not Marco and he's not Bertl and you don't kiss like lovers, not really.

Armin nuzzles against your chest, his small hands seeming to seek comfort against the solid muscle there. Without breaking your kiss with Jean you shift Armin closer to your body, hooking his slim waist in the crook of your elbow. 

Jean draws away first, gasping for air and leaning against your shoulder, the same shoulder he had cried on just minutes ago. He's really quite pretty, especially like this, with his face flushed and open and vulnerable. You touch his face with your free hand, thumb lingering at the corner of his parted lips.

Armin gently eases the three of you into a more comfortable position half laying down on the bed. You stroke his face too, wiping away the tears that finally escape from his eyes. 

For a long moment you just lie like that, treasuring the two boys' heartbeats flickering beneath your hands. No one says anything and it doesn't matter. There's a mutual understanding of the sharp need they have of the others' physical presence.

Jean breathes sharply as you idly glide your thumb across his bottom lip, and his gaze grows heated. His skin is so warm, and you feel a spike of desire in your belly. You kiss his heartbeat where it pulses from under his jaw, and he tilts his head back and gasps. Armin is touching him too, mouthing boldly against the crook of his neck.

You feel hardness press against your thigh, and a look down confirms that it's Jean, but he doesn't have the presence of mind to be embarrassed right now, and frankly, neither do you. You rub at him through the cloth of his pants, slow and steady. Armin is unbuttoning Jean's shirt, his mouth trailing behind his fingers as he kisses from his collarbones to his belly. You pull Jean slightly upwards so Armin can gently ease his shirt off his trembling arms.

Armin fumbles with his own shirt and you do likewise. Jean whines a bit at the absence of your hand on him, but Armin takes your place. He undoes the buckle of his belt and slides a slim hand under Jean's pants.

Jean cries out at this, and you silence him with a kiss. He moans into your mouth as Armin touches him and you're hard now too, rutting up against Jean's still-clothed thigh. Armin corrects this quickly, pulling Jean's pants away. You take the chance to do the same for yourself and Armin.

Now that everyone's clothes are shed, you can feel the burn of their warm bodies even more acutely against your skin. You cling to them with something like desperation, like they're the ones protecting you, they're the rocks you're holding onto. 

Armin wriggles out of your grasp and moves downwards, leaving Jean to you for now. When his blonde head is next to your thigh, he looks hesitantly up at you. You smile and run a hand through his hair, giving your unspoken permission.

He takes you into his mouth little by little, and soon you are even more flushed than Jean. You're afraid of hurting him, so you stop yourself from moving your hips but it's hard to think and control yourself when Armin's tongue laps so delicately at you. Instead you turn your attentions to Jean with increased vigor, working his cock with one hand and tweaking at his peaked nipples with the other. His heart beats a rapid staccato against his ribcage and the palm of your hand. You want to fuck him so badly that the desire catches you by surprise.

“Hold on,” you say to Armin, gently pushing his head away. There has to be something in the first aid kit you can use. You grab a promising looking bottle of oil. In your brief absence Jean and Armin have entangled, cocks grinding against each other as they kiss like men drowning.

Gently, you guide them so that Armin is on his back and Jean on top of him, and then you press yourself against Jean's back. You reach around Jean to take both their cocks in one hand and start a decent pace, savoring every gasp and shudder. With your other hand you drizzle some of the oil onto Jean's lower back. He twitches – it must be cold.

“Is this okay?” you mouth into his ear. He nods, whining a bit at the back of his throat, and you rub the oil where you dripped it, warming it between your hand and his skin. Still pumping both their cocks, you smear the oil downwards, working through the cleft of Jean's ass into his entrance.

He whimpers and arches his body downward into Armin when you slide a slick finger inside. You release their cocks and take your time working your fingers in and out of Jean. Armin contents himself with rubbing his cock between Jean's thighs, now slippery with oil. 

When you think you've prepared him enough, you press your cock against him, guiding it in slow and easy. He shivers against your chest, sandwiched between you and Armin.

He's so tight and sweet and hot, and soon you are lost in him. Your bodies form a continuous line of contact, his back pressed against your front, a thin layer of warm sweat building between your skin and his. Your ragged breaths hang heavy in the air, mingling with his and Armin's. 

“Wait,” Jean says, interrupting your reverie. “Let me take care of Armin.” He pulls Armin upward, so that he is sitting up with Jean's head between his thighs. Jean takes him in his mouth eagerly, greedily, and you almost forget to keep thrusting into Jean as you watch him work and Armin's pleasure.

Jean is propped up on his elbows, and your arms wrapped around his chest. You splay a hand flat across his collarbones, feeling every bob and swallow of his throat as he sucks Armin, takes him deep and leaves the other boy whimpering.

Armin has his hands fisted in Jean's short hair, and you lean forward and upward to kiss him over Jean. Both of you are sloppy, both of you close to the edge and you end up gasping for breath in each other's mouths more than kissing. Armin lifts one hand from Jean's head to cup your cheek, hot and sweaty against your skin. The gesture is strangely affectionate.

That added touch is all it takes for you to lose yourself, and you cry out as you thrust harder and faster into Jean until you break. You remember to pull out halfway through blowing your load, and you make a mess on Jean's back and Armin's chest. Jean moans around Armin's cock in his mouth, and soon Armin is jerking his hips upwards, keening as Jean swallows. Only a bit of cum trails from the corner of his mouth.

You grab Jean by the shoulders and flip him over, kissing his stained and bruised lips while you fist a hand over his cock. It doesn't take much to finish him, and before long he's a sobbing mess in your arms.

You lie there in the dim candlelight for who knows how long, your sweaty bodies entangled, basking in shared heat. At some point Jean gets up and to clean himself off, but you're content to just hold Armin in his absence. He rejoins the bed shortly, and the three of you doze off, painfully glad to be warm and alive and together, you're just tired soldiers too young to be playing at war,

and as your consciousness drifts off,

you blink,

and it's like waking up,

and suddenly you are wide awake, staring into darkness as you listen to Armin and Jean's soft breathing. You turn your head to look at the fuzzy outlines of their faces in the darkness. Your comrades. Your enemies. It's all so confusing.

You wonder if you could kill them, if or when (please don't let it be when) it comes to it. If you could snap Armin's slender neck, or break Jean's lean body in two. 

You honestly don't know the answer to your own question. 

But for now, you force the thought from your mind, close your eyes, and will yourself to sleep.


End file.
